Rio De Janeiro:
Brazilian palaeontologists Thursday unveiled a fossil of a creature
that they said is the “missing link” between prehistoric and
present-day crocodiles.
Called Montealtosuchus arrudacamposi,
the predator measured five and a half feet long, weighed about 40 kgs
and lived in the late Cretaceous Period (80-85 million years ago) in
the region of Palo Alto, in Sao Paulo state.
“This is
scientifically important because the specimen literally is the link
between more primitive crocodiles that lived in the era of the
dinosaurs 80-85 million years ago and modern species,” said
palaeontologist Ismar de Souza
Carvalho of Rio de Janeiro Federal University, who was part of the research
team.
The
university’s other palaeontologist Felipe de Vasconcellos, who found
the fossil in 2004, said: “It has a mix of morphological traits common
in prehistoric crocodiles and in the ones that exist today.”
It lived on dry land and was quick on its feet, instead of living in marshlands
and spending most of its time under water.
“Its
nostrils were at the front (of its snout). If it went in the water, it
had to keep its head erect, (thus) making it an easy target for other
predators. Its eyes were placed laterally, like other land-walking
animals,” Vasconcellos said.
“As a missing link to prehistoric
crocodiles, it offers us an excellent opportunity to study the
evolutionary transition of these animals,” he added.
The
discovery could also lead palaeontologists to revise theories that
place the origin of crocodiles in the northern hemisphere, where no
fossils of such “intermediary” species have been found, Vasconcellos
noted.
“Perhaps the origin of crocodiles around the entire world was in
the south and not in North America or Europe as it was always
believed,” he said. “They may have first appeared in South Africa or
America, when they were fused together as a single continent. That
would change the way an entire species has propagated.”
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